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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your standard tech founder. After multiple instances of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to technology for a solution.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, providing the platform you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

To date, one service has adopted her tech and she's in talks with many others.

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.